The Elysium Commission (3 page)

That got smiles from both Krij and Siendra.

Then Krij stood. “I'd better not waste your time, either.” She tilted her head in the quizzical expression that was hers alone. “Brunch on Senen? Eleven hour?”

“At your place?”

“Where else?”

“I'll be there.”

I didn't see Siendra stand, but she had.

I accompanied them all the way out of the study and through the entry foyer and down the steps to their limousine—small standard gray corpentity transport. Solar-electrofuel-cell, like most models.

Before Siendra turned to follow Krij into the limousine, she smiled politely. Her eyes met mine, but I had the feeling that there was some sort of barrier there. It wasn't dislike, and it wasn't fear, but more like the feeling of distance. Maybe it was because she and Krij minimized danger, while I wanted to master it.

I watched the limousine glide out through the gates and the gates close. Then I walked back up the stone steps and across the foyer to the study. When the door closed behind me, the villa felt emptier after they left than before they had arrived. I knew why, but explaining to myself would only have made it worse.

Besides, I had the rest of Marten to dig further into the Reynarda and Tozzi jobs—and to make the changes in the descriptions of my equipment, as well as a cryptic reminder to myself about using model and make numbers for what I purchased.

Then, too, I needed to go through the rest of the messages.

My boredom threshold has always been low. The more mysterious work was always more appealing. That looked to be the Reynarda commission. I set Max to work on two mathematical analyses of possible civic registry keys. The first was based on all the numbers and phrases likely to be common to the Eloi brothers. The second was an improbability analysis, designed to develop uncommon keys, or rather, keys the Elois would think were uncommon. I had Max's backup cull all public video that could be found of either Eloi and of Judeon Maraniss.

Then I had him do the same for the Tozzi heiress and the doctoral fortune seeker.

After that, I went down below, where I went through a full real-body physical workout. Two solid stans. After that, I cooled down, cleaned up, then returned to the villa's lower levels, where I put myself through the armed deep-space scout refresher—version three. That was using an actual cockpit interior, with enough virtie assist to make it more real.

After a quiet and very late luncheon or early dinner by myself on the verandah, I girded myself up to study all the vid-shots of my targets and see what associations I could draw from them and the backgrounds. That's never as simple as it sounds. That and catching up on various odds and ends took the rest of the early evening.

The shadows are deeper around and within Deo Patre. I couldn't say why, only that they always are. Just as it seems that the light of Voltaire never falls directly on the front entrance, although that of Bergerac does, contrary as that may seem. Not many people visit the old cathedral anymore, even to look at the exhibits in the day. Never at night. Especially not on a Marten eve, not after the exploits of the Fox—Reynard de la Nuit. That had been a century ago. But in our Post-Deist Age, superstitions die hard. There's no god to remove them.

Why was I standing in the shadows inside Deo Patre?

When I'm not involved personally, I have a good sense for trouble. When I am, I don't. Rather, that sense is less accurate. Tonight, someone was going to need me. If not, it was a quiet night for a stroll and a visit to the past. At times, my visits to the past are untroubled. Those are few, though.

I heard footsteps on the permastone of the walkway that led up to the main doors on the west end of the cathedral. The doors opened, and three figures stepped inside—two taller ones and a slighter figure.

“Just take a look. You won't believe it. It's a real cathedral.”

“It's the only one in all Thurene, maybe in all Devanta.”

I watched from the shadows behind a column that was the last of the line of those separating the nave from the north aisle.

“I don't like this.” The slight figure was a girl—a real girl, not a nymph.

The two muscular youths turned and grabbed her simultaneously. One slapped a gag across her mouth, while the other used a restrainer. She sagged, but still attempted to struggle. Between the restrainer field and the strength of the young men, she could do nothing. After a moment, there was a dull thump as the antique entrance bar dropped into place, locking the main doors.

“You're sure about the scanners?”

“I'm the maintenance tech. They aren't linked to the Garda net anyway.”

The slightly less muscular youth carried the squirming woman down the nave. I paralleled them, carrying my own darkness from column to column of the north aisle.

“On the altar. It's no good if you don't do it on the altar.”

I didn't see or sense weapons—such as sacrificial daggers. That suggested either straight rape for thrills or a twisted ceremonial deflowering. But you can never tell. I slipped from the end of the aisle up through the side entrance to the transept. The less-massive youth looked around, then bent down and ripped off the girl's trousers and undergarments.

That was intent enough. I stepped out into the chancel, coming from the left side of the altar, facing it, that is. I've always favored the left, in this case, the left hand of darkness.

“Look! The shadows!” The one stripping the restrained girl looked up.

I stepped forward, holding my darkness.

“Not that impressive. It must be some sort of projection.” The heavier youth stepped toward me. His face was a near replica of the statue of Ares in the Palatinium in Zeopolis. I sensed the plastiflesh.

It was almost a shame to immobilize him with two blows he never saw coming. Almost.

The would-be rapist bolted to his feet. He got no farther before I took him down.

Then I took the commlink from the girl's belt. Her eyes widened, in even greater fear. But I just pressed the Garda distress stud and set it beside her. Then I released the restrainer field and reset it to cover both the would-be assailants. Then I turned, gathering darkness around me.

Behind me, she half screamed, but she'd recover. I could sense her grabbing for her garments.

I went out through the chapter house exit because the shadows were heavier there.

The two had obviously planned their escapade for some time. Plastiflesh faces and synth DNA and pheromones, and no obvious clues to their identification once they used the girl. They'd meant to dose her with mem-ex or something similar. Without any memory from the girl and no traces to them, they might have gotten away with it. They might not have, but the damage would have been done to her. The eons-old problem with law has always been that it cannot prevent what might happen without destroying all freedom. I'd had to wait long enough for their intent to be clear. That had been cruel, but necessary.

Once out in the shadows, I walked past the open gate to the graveyard and glanced sideways at the statue of the sorrowing angel. Beyond the angel stretched the headstones. Not quite midnight in the garden of good and evil. That had been before the bodies beneath the stones had been removed. The stones and their inscriptions had been left for illustrative purposes. Meaningless illustrative purposes for an age in which death was infrequent and treated as if it were an avoidable accident that had been the deceased's personal fault. Death was often no longer the greatest of calamities. Life was.

From the grounds of Deo Patre, I walked through the shadows of the past and the present toward an unknown destination.

A purplish gray line of amorphousness oozed over my fingers and across the back of my knuckles. I tried to yank my left arm away. It would not move. Somehow I was restrained. My other hand and arm would not move, either. Neither would my toes nor feet. Overhead was a greenish white mist. It could have been centimeters or meters away from me. I couldn't tell. I was neither hot nor cold.

“Just relax. You'll be all right.” The voice reverberated in my ears and jolted my skull. The voice was meant to be reassuring.

It wasn't.

The purplish gray mass engulfed my hand and wrist. White-hot needles burned all the way up my arm. Every muscle in my body convulsed, yet nothing moved. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“Just take it easy. You'll be all right.”

It didn't feel that way. What was happening? Where was I?

I tried to remember. How had I gotten here, wherever “here” was?

I'd been scouting a possible Frankan installation on Pournelle II, a hot near-airless planet that was mostly nickel iron. It might have been the core of a gas giant once. Whatever else had been above the core had been stripped away when the star it circled had gone nova. Now all that was left was a dwarf star with a few clinkers orbiting it.

But the Pournelle system was less than two light-years from the fringe of the Gallian subsector and made a good advance base. At least, Assembly IS had thought there might be Frankans there. So SpecOps had sent me and Brooke in with stealth needleships. He'd always protested that he was a great lover, and fighting came second. If fighting came second, I'd never have wanted to be in love with any woman he'd desired.

For all that, his ship-shields had failed, and I'd gone after him. After some considerable difficulties, we'd finally been headed out-system. Clear of the Frankans, I'd thought.

After that…I couldn't remember.

More of the purple-gray oozed over my right hand and up the arm. As it did, another set of blazing needles seared me.

An involuntary moan started in my throat. It never got any farther.

“You'll be all right…”

How could I be all right when I was unable to move and being swallowed alive by some sort of nanetic gray goo?

I kept trying to twist free, to break away from whatever held me. I could feel sweat popping out all over me, but my body wouldn't move. I had to get free. I just had to.

Abruptly, I was free.

I was also sitting up in my own bed—alone. I'd ripped a section of the high-count sateen sheet apart and clutched it in my left hand. My sleeping shorts were soaked, and so were the remnants of the sheets.

Interrogative time?

Zero four thirteen, sir.

Thank you
. Not that Max needed thanks. I just needed to thank him.

Slowly, I swung my feet out of the bed and onto the floor. The thick Arasian wool carpet felt good to my feet. I stood and walked to the window. From there, I looked into the garden courtyard. The view didn't help. The hazaleans looked gray-ghostly under the silvery light. Voltaire was only half-full, and the stonework was morgue white.

I turned and took in the bed, the night table, and the long and low chest that held clothes. They were all clean-lined gray ironwood. Shadow furniture to match…what? A shadow knight? Except I'd never called myself that. Others had. They didn't really know me.

I was Blaine Donne, wasn't I? That was my name. Or it had been.

But was I still? If not, who was I?

There was no point in going back over that.

I took a deep breath and walked slowly back to the chest to take out a dry pair of sleeping shorts. I'd have to change the sheets as well. Unlike many, I still preferred natural cotton. That said something about who I was. Didn't it?

Although I'd gone to bed late and had another nightmare, I still woke up early, right after dawn. I took my time getting to breakfast, then managed my morning workout. When I'd cooled down and cleaned up, I went back to work on setting up more investigative searches on my targets.

I'd tried to reach Myndanori and a few other sources, but all I'd gotten were talking heads. All that took the rest of the morning on Miercen.

Just past one, I checked my gear and shields, then stepped out of the villa and down the wide and gray granite steps to the limousine. The blue-green sky was clear. Mostly. There were clouds to the north of Thurene, over the Malmonts. That was true of most days. That rain was what fed the Nouvelle Seine.

The car looked like every other small limousine. The driver was a woman. Autovirtie drivers were also verboten for all hired vehicles. Drivers for the special limousine required additional qualifications. I flashed the ID and code, and got the confirmation back. The rear door opened. I eased into the seat.

“Seignior Donne, to the Palacio Ottewyn?”

“The same. You're to wait.”

“Confirmed on full alert.”

I nodded. The service organizations were among the few one could trust. Rigorous impartiality was a necessity for them to remain in business. Expensive as they were, they were far cheaper than betrayal. Especially in Devanta, where one of the unspoken rules was that the habit of secrecy was both politic and moral.

The driver eased out through my plain iron gates, simple vertical bars, nanite-reinforced, and down Cuarta Calle to Le Boulevard. She drove the left-hand side of the Parc du Roi, then took Maiden Lane through the Boutique, rather than Vallum through La Banque. In Thurene, at times more credits passed through the fashion lanes than through the financial center.

At the far end of Maiden Lane, she entered the traffic circle and came out on Boudicca, less than a half klick from our destination. The limousine stopped at the gatehouse to Odilia's palacio. The gatehouse was half the size of my villa. It was also twice as ugly. I'd never voiced that to Odilia. The limousine went through the full surveillance array—tags, snoops, and sweeps. There were some I could sense, but not identify. That was one problem with going civvie. I'd kept up as well as I could, but the best personal technology was still IS and, to a lesser extent, Garda.

“Blaine Donne for Princesse Ottewyn.”

“You are expected.” The virtie guard nodded, her dark eyes never leaving the driver.

Unlike some in positions of power, Odilia did not make her guests climb a flight of stone steps from the portico to the main entrance. My guests had to, but that hadn't been my choice, and I wasn't about to rebuild my villa. Odilia's rotunda was covered and less than ten meters from the arched and columned entrance to the palacio.

That entrance was a facade. Behind it was a long, marble-paved walkway, also flanked by golden stone columns. Beyond the columns on either side was an interior courtyard garden, a jungle representation of fallen temples from ancient Earth. Someplace called Angkor. Beyond the courtyard garden was the receiving hall. The floor was polished pale blue marble. This year. The last time I had been in the palacio the marble had been rose. Black granite columns—shot with golden streaks—formed two semicircles, split by the entry archway through which I had entered and by the grand staircase. The staircase was also of the gold-shot black granite. The columns soared ten meters to the base of the dome, whose surface displayed a changing iridescence created by the millions of nanotubes that picked up the sun and shifted the light according to some pattern I'd never been able to analyze. The hall was a good thirty meters across and empty of all furnishings. There were no hangings between the columns or the pale white marble walls behind them. Not a single work of art was visible anywhere. The intent was to diminish anyone who called, although I knew that fountains, furnishings, and art could appear within minutes.

I waited a good quarter stan in that starkness before Odilia made her way down the grand staircase. Then I bowed.

“With such a poor excuse for respect, I should have made you wait longer.” Odilia curtsied. Despite the full antiquarian skirt, she made it look graceful. This year, she was petite, black-haired, with a heart-shaped face and an impossibly slim waist. Last year, she'd been blond, better endowed curvaceously, and with a wholesome and slightly oval face. “You always look the same, Blaine, year after year. Depressingly unchanged. The same black hair that looks almost dark gray. The same military gray trousers, the black jacket, and silver blouse…accouterments of the shadows.”

“Shirt. I don't wear blouses.” I did bow more deeply. “You've decreed that this year the fashion must be Imperial?”

“It has been a while, and Imperiale is formal upon the surface and decadent beneath.” She raised her right eyebrow not quite imperceptibly.
And are we not most decadent here in Thurene?
That came by flashcode, virtually impossible to intercept as close as we stood, unlike sound waves.

“Surfaces are most important. They conceal or reveal what is desired.”
And you conceal most revealingly and charmingly.

“And what is it that you desire, Seignior?”
Since you never come to see me unless you want information.
With the words came the slightest hint of very feminine pheromones, but ones I'd have called virginal lust, not that Odilia was anything close to virginal.

“You, most certainly. Why else would I throw myself at your feet?”
You'd never want to see me if I didn't, dear Odilia. It makes you feel valued and important—which you are—or I wouldn't be here.

“That is the most eloquent you have been in years. Do you know that the ancient Tarot is the new fashion?”

“I had not heard. I'm not one for changing fashion, as you have pointed out.”
Judeon Maraniss—what have you heard?

“Do you think more highly of the Fisher King or the Hanged Man?”
He's rather dull. The only thing interesting about him is the rumor that he's connected with Legaar Eloi.

“I doubt that any would wish to suffer the real death, Principessa.”
In what fashion?

“Imperiale suggests ‘Princesse,' Seignior Donne.”
Some disgusting commercial venture…Judeon needed financing for a project, but he refused to provide proprietary information to La Banque de Thurene…or the First Commerce Bank, so I was told. So he went to Legaar.

I ignored the fact that Odilia's considerable fortune was based on sordid commercial dealings by her late mother. Eleyna Ottewyn had maintained that she'd never lifted a finger to deal in commerce. She hadn't. It had all been done in flashcode. Sometimes on her back, it had been rumored. However she had accomplished it, Eleyna had made certain that her daughter was powerful and well-off.

“I apologize, Princesse.” I bowed again.
What kind of project?

“I will consider accepting your apology.” She lifted the left eyebrow. “If you are suitably contrite.”
Something that mixed civic planning and entertainment, probably taking the worst from each.

“How could my most sincere contrition be other than suitable?”
How many creds? Do you know what Legaar Eloi asked in return?

“Your contrition is always so heartfelt, Blaine, even when you don't mean it. That's what makes you so charming.”
Several score million, I understand, and a minority interest close to a majority.

“I'm only charming to you, Seigniora. You're the only one who deserves it.”
What sort of project would a specialist like Maraniss have that cost that much?

“You also lie charmingly, Blaine.”
I don't know. No one I know does either.

“What else can I do? The truth would not be gracious enough, and grace itself not truthful.”
I'm also looking into a Dr. Richard Guillaume Dyorr. He's attempting to wed one Marie Annette Tozzi. I understand she's the granddaughter of one of your neighbors.

“There is more than one meaning to grace, as you well know.”
Seldara was a contemporary of my mother's. She's the only one who cares about the great-grandchildren. Everyone else just waits for her to die. They'll wait decades. Marie Annette is the only one of the lot worth worrying about. I haven't heard anything.

“All meanings of grace apply to you. How could they not?”
Can you tell me anything else?

“With such eloquence, you simply must accompany me to the opening of
Hyperion
this coming Vieren.”
Perhaps then I'll know more.

I bowed. An invitation to appear in public with Odilia was not to be missed. Not in my line of work, but not for the reasons most people thought. I also might learn more. “I would be honored.”
Thank you.

The faintest smile appeared on that beautiful heart-shaped face. “I will see you here at even-six of Vieren. Good afternoon, Seignior.”
Don't spend too much time as the knight of shadows.

“Your wish is my command.”
If not me, then who?
Old lines, contrasted, but perfectly acceptable. I bowed again before making my departure.

The sun had dimmed close to thirteen percent by the time I returned to the limousine. The solar screens beyond the atmosphere had adjusted to the solar variability. The variability had not been that obvious more than a millennium before when the planoforming of Devanta had been completed and colonization begun.

Once outside, before stepping into the limousine, I tried a system-link back to Max. The first reason was to have him schedule the engagement with Odilia. The second was suspicion.

Personal security caught the linktrace in nanoseconds, before I even flashlinked. I made the link anyway.
Max, reserve the evening this Vieren, from five-even on.

Yes, Seignior.

Max…detect alpha one.

He didn't respond to me. That was the confirmation.

Odilia's gates were cupridium thorn-olives that shimmered even in low light and radiated enough in normal light to make it hard to look at them without retinal adjustment. They were strong enough to remain intact under any energy flow short of a nova. The driver eased out through them and went the other way onto Vallum. Halfway into La Banque area, she turned right and took Swift Alley into Dauphine Drive. The hazalean trees were still flowering, cascading blossoms onto the blue-green turf of the Parc. Each one released a flash of purple as it touched the grass. It wouldn't be that long before the long autumn turned to winter.

In minutes, we were headed back up Cuarta Calle, and I went to passive mode, listening. I did pulse the gates, and they opened. The driver eased the limousine to a stop at the foot of the stone steps.

From out of what most would have received as white energy, the implant pulled Max's transmission.
Simulacrum at your 330. Range Amorphous energy concentration at your 217.

Before exiting the limousine, I calculated the angles, then eased to the door behind the driver. “I'll be getting out this side.”

“Yes, Seignior.” The driver stiffened.

I could sense all the limousine's defense screens and shields. That was fine with me—exactly what I wanted.

I put my own nanoshield on full, stepped out, turned, and…dropped to one knee.

Energy coruscated off the limousine and its shields.

The driver reacted, and a fine-line particle beam took out the “amorphous” energy source. It also left a large hole in Soror Celestina's outer vallum. She'd complain to the Sorores Civitas, but since the transport company had been fired on and responded, there was little recourse against me. Much neater that way. Also much less on my dossier with the Garda. There was already too much there as it was.

“Thank you,” I told the driver.

She smiled. “It comes with the service, Seignior Donne. There will be a surcharge.”

“Of course.”

I maintained my nanoshield only so long as it took to climb the steps and enter the villa. I was sweating and overheated anyway. A shield strong enough to divert even moderate energy will cook the user in five minutes—sometimes less. That's why they're usually pulsed. Pulsing doesn't work against high continuous energy discharges, and those are what anyone serious uses. Except on my forays in the shadows on my own, I usually only encountered serious users. With all its limitations, a nanoshield still had its uses.

When the doors of the entry foyer closed behind me, I direct-linked with Max. The patterns the system had observed and recorded didn't reveal much more than I'd calculated in the backseat of the special limousine.

Now the question was who was after me. I doubted seriously whether a fortune hunter like the good doctor would have known I was tracing him—or how to put together a team that could bring that much energy to bear in a matter of a day or so.

Had Seigniora Reynarda commissioned me merely to get rid of me, or to get me irritated enough to take on Legaar Eloi and Judeon Maraniss? Or to see if I were able to do so? Or to get me vanished later on so that an official investigation by the Garda under the instigation of the Civitas Sorores would reveal whatever connection she wished raised? That certainly would be cheaper than paying me what it would cost. It also had downsides, because there was always the possibility that it might reveal who or what was behind the mysterious seigniora.

I spent the rest of Miercen afternoon finishing up my formal report to Lewiston Aslan, II. I'd finished his dark materials investigation two weeks earlier, and I'd briefed him at the time. That was one where I'd had solid inklings of what lay beneath it all from the first, unlike whatever it was that Seigniora Reynarda wanted. Aslan had still wanted formal documentation. Behind that bluff leonine facade, he was more than a little parochial. I hated formal reports, but I wouldn't get the last ten percent of my fee without the report. My dislike of leaving creds on the table was far greater than my distaste of perfunctory documentation of what I'd done and found. So I gathered everything together, added the summary of my activities and findings, and sent it off. One encrypted version through the net, and a hard copy conveyed by Thurene Secure Couriers. At least the dark materials investigation hadn't been as bad as the Kung Chuo lost station problem. When someone inverted power nodes into spinspace, it got messy. After that one, it had taken the best reconstructive surgeons on Devanta to restore me. Krij had been less than pleased about that. It still hadn't been as bad as the complete regen that had required my medical retirement from SpecOps.